What a crazy winter it has been. With an early spring in the forecast we have started to tap our maple trees to bring forth that sweet sap that is boiled with love to produce maple syrup. It takes almost 50 gallons of sap to produce a gallon of syrup. Our sugar bush (all 3,000 trees) are connected by tubing that brings the raw sap right down to the sap house for boiling. Family and friends will all gather to keep me awake as I hover over the fire to evaporate the water out of the sap until it becomes syrup. Benjimin Franklin, that wise old sage, invented the maple syrup grading system. He was trying to wean the new colonies off of Cuban cane sugar and replace it with maple sugar. Good try Franklin…he also wanted the official bird of the U.S. to be the turkey. Just think, if he had succeeded instead of calling someone a turkey in a derogatory way we call them an eagle. Hmmm